User:Lotusduck
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
If you are here looking for what motivation lies behind my edits, for the most part there are three: Wikipedia: Attribution, Wikipedia: No Original Research and to some extent Wikipedia: NPOV. Why less enthusiasm for Neutral Point of View? Because, as no policy is to be interpreted in void of the other two, verifiability and no original research accomplish neutral point of view. If we can attribute every thing correctly and we don't make anything up, we won't have a point of view, eh?
I'm not joking about verifiability- pages actually do need verification by published sources, reliable even. Check the page, I'm not making this up.
Contents |
[edit] The new kick
The new kick I am on is to work on improving whole sections of wikipedia with the idea of creating fodder for a high quality wikibook, one that could be promoted for use in a classroom. What do we think?
[edit] The new strategy
Sometimes people feel like policy is too exclusive, and they try to stand up for an article or it's content when it is non-compliant with policy. I think that people in this situation should consider that there are other wikis that have policies that agree with their mode of thinking. From now on, I will be transwiki-ing large chunks of original research by deleting them here and adding them to wikiinfo, where original research is encouraged.
[edit] A Mystical Creature
Lotusduck is Sarah Elizabeth Prentice, daughter to Sally Gonzalez and sister to User: Philthecoffeejerk.
There is another Sarah Prentice who once sung in a band called La Honda. She is taller than me, in a little better physical shape but sings in approximately the same vocal range. In many pictures, she looks very similar to the Lotusduck Sarah Prentice. Recently, she has been replaced in La Honda by someone named Emily. If you have any information on this obscure singer, please leave a message on Lotusduck's talk page. La Honda is a small time band that had a song in a tic-tac commercial once. Sarah sung only for a portion of the song in the tic-tac commercial, and I don't know whether or not it was the portion used in the commercial. La Honda has no wikipedia page, as it hasn't done anything since I first discovered it googling my name in the 10th grade. I had high hopes, but alas I haven't even heard of a concert. Also they replaced Sarah, so I don't even care anymore.
As the semester changes there will be an immense decrease in caring about hydrology, forestry, conservation, and botany articles. After a brief stint in caring about lists and what wikipedia is and may not be, lotusduck will be returning to caring about things that don't get her so worked up.
[edit] Attribution: citation finding strategies
Surprisingly, Amazon.com lets readers see large chunks of much of their books in excerpt if you are looking for instances of a given term.
[edit] Articles that probably should exist
Hydrophobic soils Wait! Hooray!
[edit] Articles that probably shouldn't exist
I have come upon a lot of pages on genres of erotica of questionable notability. Most claim to be paraphilias or fetishes, but often without adhereing to any definition of either word. A fetish for instance, is an attraction to a part of a person, a percieved type of person or an object, most fetishes are very well documented, most anything you can imagine has a psych paper written about it. But a fantasy situation is not an object, not a fetish. Being particularly aroused by a certain sub-genre of porn isn't the definition of paraphilia either. Many of these articles half heartedly expand their attempts at being encyclopedic by adding the prefix, uh, I mean suffix philia to the end. The most widespread problem with these articles other than a dubious connection to paraphilias or fetishism is their unverifiability. Of course, often enough real publishers do put out articles on a topic, and the fans just prefer to use only their fan definitions rather than cite real sources. This is not an attack on the big paraphilias, this is an annoyance with small chatrooms dedicated to a sub-subgenre of erotica pretending they have a medical problem on wikipedia. All in all, the whole phenomena is really annoying. I would start a special comission on non-made-up paraphilias and fetish if I even knew how.
There are a lot of other articles (or the exact same articles I was talking about earlier) that complain that they just aren't notable enough to have verifiable sources. To this I say, please, somebody read the policies.
I think newspapers, magazines (peer reviewed scientific journals even) are overenthused with anything weird, new, and online. Whole segments of news shows go to reading high trafficked blogs, I've read peer reviewed cultural critiques of the totally made up queer cultural identification with George Costanza from Seinfeld. If an article really is unverifiable, then it really is non-notable- although unverifiable would do it for deletion just fine.
Finally, just because you know what you're talking about, doesn't mean what you're saying makes any sense. When I edit soils articles, a science that I learned quite a bit about, I put an unreferenced tag if I didn't immediately put a reference on. Because people have different names for things, because terms mean different things within different groups, because until a central authority speaks to it and makes it verifiable, my truth is no better than a laymans truth.
[edit] Lotusduck's hypocrisy
I think that notability and verifiability go hand in hand, most of the time, and that when a topic is written about in books, news articles or peer reviewed journals, or of course if the topic is on a tv show (assuming the topic isn't the show itself) then it is notable. One area where I ignore my own definitions is television episodes. TV episode articles are pretty useful to a bunch of people. They are also filled with explanations and fanon opinions and interesting facts and connections are generally the subject of original research. But I edit and contribute articles that are nothing but episodes of TV shows. I also use and read them. I think that they are not especially bad for wikipedia, and very good for television episodes. When I am watching an episode of Stargate SG-1 with a zero point module in it, I can clear up my confusion about the item in the context of the show, and I can learn about the real theoretical physics idea of the same name because the TV episode guide is a part of the same wikipedia. My strict interpretationism on sources usually is an easy way to enforce my general instinct that a page is wrong or useless. In TV shows, I think allowing episodic, fanon filled articles allows wikipedia to be more centralized, connected and interesting.
[edit] The Power of SCIENCE
I edit and add to scientific articles. Currently, I am working on Soil Science, and it is awesome. Now, you might ask, how can soil science possibly be awesome? I often edit controvertial articles that are 90% created and maintained by their rabid fan base, solely to get those articles to comply with policy. Soil science articles on the other hand, have a far more sedate editing base, I can be the only one to edit an article for a month, and the first edit that isn't by me will likely be verifiable, factual and all over helpful. This makes me feel like the king of the town.
[edit] This day in Lotusduck history
One in wikipedia, there was a page called "List of fictional people known by one name"- a topic that was not especially researched or common in literate discourse. In order to make it seem mor encyclopedic I created an original research fluffy ruberic to determine what name could be on the list and what couldn't. Then I realized that wikipedia is not my personal publisher, and we all got together and deleted the article. The following is the self gratifying-I'm-so-clever ruberic I created:
What this list is
This is a list of fictional characters whose full names are unknown, or rarely mentioned and little-known. This list is restricted to characters whose names are literally one word. So the femme-fatal Number-Six from Battlestar Galactica (2003) is excluded, but the femme-fatal Six from Max Barry's Syrup, is included. [edit]
What this list isn't
Characters that are usually called by one name but their full name is easily recalled, like Wednesday Adams, are not included in this list. However, a character with a full name that is known almost exclusively by their one-word-name (to the point that a fan would only know the one-word name and no others) is included in this list. One example of this would be Radar from M*A*S*H, who has a real full name comprised of several words, but that name is very obscure information within the show.
This is not a list of people with a one-word nickname, or a one word name that they are often called. Only characters with a one word nickname and an unknown or very obscure full name or other names. So Superman is not on the list because all of his names total three: Superman, Clark and Kent.
This is not a list of fictional uses of real or religious one-word names. So if a god with one name is in a show, that entry should not be included in this list. However, if a characters' one word name is just happens to also be the name of a god, that is a new character not a fictionalization of a god. So Apollo from Hercules or Xena is not on the list, but CAG Apollo from Battlestar Galactica is on the list.
Many characters' are called by one word names, usually their first names, but are not recognizable outside the context of the show as meaning only that character. Elaine from Seinfeld does not belong in this list, not because her last name is known, as Radar's last name is known, but because Elaine is not synonymous with Elaine Marie Benes from Seinfeld. Radar is not 100% positively associated with that particular character, however he does not share a name with as many characters as Elaine does. As such, all characters known by common given names or common surnames are excluded from this list.
Also, this is a list of people known by one name that are somewhat well known. Obscurity is relative, however, so known is measured within the story the character inhabits. Minor characters that are a part of short sub-plots are excluded from this list. This means that Snug and Bottom from A Midsummer Night's Dream are on the list, but Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Mote, and Mustardseed are not.
This is a list of people known by one name, not a list of characters known by one name. Any reasonable facsimile of a person can be considered a person for this discussion. So Commander Data is in, and Mothra and Godzilla are out. The definition of person will hinge on the definition of humanoid. If an alien is considered humanoid, then it can be considered a person. But if a character looks human but is defined as being some other animal, such as Sonic the hedgehog, that character must be excluded from this list. Most animals are only called by one simple name, and a list of fictional pet-names could never be completed. Similarly, viruses, cosmic entities, computers and non-humanoid imaginary friends are excluded from this list. So Harvey the imaginary rabbit that follows around Jimmy Stewart is out, and Harvey the humanoid Scorpio that torments John Crichton in Farscape is in.
Some exceptions may be made to the one-word constriction of this list, that being honorifics and the word "The". Spock's name is Spock, although he is often called Mr. Spock. Captain Sulu's name is Sulu, and The Fonz' name is Fonz or Fonzie. While we would call him The Fonz, his friends call him Fonz by itself, so he has one name.
